Turtle Island Native Network invites you to discuss issues related to the legacy of Indian Residential Schools in Canada and Indian Boarding Schools and Mission Schools in the United States. E-Mail us at turtleislandnativenetwork@gmail.com

WE MAKE THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS TO HEAL THE ONGOINGIMPACT OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS ON FIRST NATIONS YOUTH:

1. Establish a nationally recognized day that commemorates the livesstolen by residential schools and the impacts the schools continue tohave in the lives of First Nations young people, adults and elders.

2. Establish a First Nations History Month (like Black History Month).

3. Design and implement, with the input of First Nations youth, curriculumthat teaches the truth about what happened in residential schools,day schools and the 60’s Scoop to counteract the harmful stereotypesand false and misleading “debates” that play out in the media.

4. Establish partnerships and scholarships for First Nations young peopleto promote access to broadcasting and media resources and helpcreate real First Nations content.

5. Fund the establishment of more networks like the Aboriginal PeoplesTelevision Network, and cover the issues of importance to Aboriginalpeoples in all our diversity.

6. Make the publication of blatantly racist articles in the media subjectto “hate laws.”

7. Begin with families. We need families to have the support necessaryto begin healing.

RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR EFFECTS: DISPELLING MYTHS“Canadian public:Just get over it.”

Being a First Nations person in this country has negativeimplications for the lives and outlook of our youngpeople. We watch as First Nations issues are hotly debatedin public forums and are the topics of discussion in newsprograms and other media outlets.

We witness our lives as apeoples repeatedly investigated, dissected and critiqued. Itis certainly evident that the “Indian Problem,”(1)a term firstcoined by Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendentof Indian Affairs in the early 1900’s, still lives in the mindsets,behaviours and attitudes towards us by mainstream Canada.

These public “debates” and discussions typically involve theuse of dangerous terms such as “assimilation” and “integrationinto Canadian society.” What is surprising to me isthat these issues are discussed with such intensity andheat by people who, more often than not, have no prioreducation about or direct experience with, First Nationspeoples. Unfortunately, the very strong and misguidedopinions that get expressed in these discussions underpinand entrench deeply problematic attitudes towards us bynon-First Nations Canada.

For example:• We should simply leave our reserves if we want to gainequal footing with the rest of mainstream Canadians.

• We need to stop complaining about our situations andstart taking care of ourselves, instead of “relying on thegovernment.”

• We use residential schools as an excuse for remaining inour present state of poverty (victim blaming).

• As “non-contributing” members of society, we use upCanadian tax dollars to live freely on “handouts” such ashousing, welfare, post-secondary education, communityinfrastructure.

• We receive “special race-based treatment.”

As First Nations young people we are left living the very realand painful legacy of residential schools in our day-to-daylives. Our parents and elders who experienced emotionaltrauma in these settings later developed addictions problems,depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)among other things. These dismal outcomes are commonin First Nations communities across the country.

When ourparents and grandparents were young, they experiencedabuse on physical, emotional, developmental,sexual, and spiritual levels. They were deniednutritious food, access to caring adults andproper health care. These deprivations resultedin the development of dysfunctional behavioursthat continue to be passed down through thegenerations. Coming home after spending timein a residential school usually left these childrenfeeling disconnected from their parents andcommunities. Some also felt shame for theirparents’ traditional ways because of what theywere taught about their cultural backgroundsand heritage while in school. Most ended upnot being able to fit into either the world of thecommunity they were born into or the world theywere educated in.

Growing up, we were impacted by what ourparents faced in residential schools. The result isour inability to trust adults, our inability to showor receive affection from our parents and siblings,our draw to alcohol, solvents, and prescriptiondrugs to distract us from our situations, sky-highrates of suicide and damage to our relationshipswith our elders. This ever-present reality can allbe tied back to the impacts of our dispossessionand disconnection from our culture, language, spiritualpractices and families.

Most young people (some as early as 5–6 years old) have theresponsibility of caring for or feeding their families whilestruggling to attend school and dealing with depression,anxiety, feelings of abandonment, isolation and loss to deathor suicide. Many of us have never even had the chance tojust be children. Facing these challenges is so overwhelmingto many youth and they are left struggling with no way tocope. This is due to a lack of resources in our communitiesand the absence of healthy adults who can teach or passalong life skills.

The impacts are highly complex and interwoven into thelives and families of those who attended residential schools.Helping them regain some quality of life will require the developmentof accessible rehabilitation programs in sufficientnumber to reach people in communities all across the province.

Unfortunately, at present these types of programs are notavailable to most families and communities in the far north.When non-First Nations people tell us to “just get over it” orsimply “leave the past in the past,” they do not understandhow this one-off phrase works to silence us from ever speakingabout our history and present, stifles conversationsabout attaining a better future and is harmful on so manylevels. First Nations people know that we cannot moveforward if we do not acknowledge and honour our pasts.

Pushing all the responsibility and weight (or in some cases,blame) on to the survivors plays into the common beliefthat First Nations people are “blowing out of proportion”the indecent acts that were forced upon our mothers andfathers, brothers and sisters and ourselves. I cannot comprehendhow simply forgetting and ignoring the past will helpanyone out, especially since the harms of the past continueto be repeated. How do you tell someone to “just get over”abuse; to “just” know how to trust, to love, to be strong, tobe soft, to be vulnerable?

The residential school system has not gone away, it hasonly changed its face. Its roots are deep and can be seen inthe current secondary school system in place for many FirstNations youth who attend schools off-reserve in town orurban such as:• Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) High School inThunder Bay• Northern Eagle High School in Ear Falls• Pelican Falls High School in Sioux Lookout• Queen Elizabeth In Sioux Lookout• St. Patrick’s High School in Thunder Bay

These schools are situated so that young people must betaken out of their communities and separated from theirfamilies in order to get a “proper” secondary school education.

This current system of educating us resonates toomuch with our recent past. The unfortunate loss of youth,such as Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese,Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morriseau and JordanWabasse — all of whom died, sadly, while attending DFC(either by accident or suicide) — and the hundreds of youthwho dropped out of school to return home with addictionsand no credits, provide examples of what the present systemdoes to First Nations youth.

It is with indignation that I write about how we were movedfrom being thriving independent self-determining nationsto peoples who are forced to receive the “help” of successivefederal governments, who have, through formal policy andlegislation, put us into a reserve system that created littlemore than the first slums of Canada. It is unjust that we areexpected to now look to this same government and outsidersto tell us what we need to do to restore and heal ourselves and our communities.

It is with this sense of injusticethat Feathers of Hope was born: that we as young peopleare at a point where we want to decide for ourselves whatare the best solutions to our issues, despite the oppressiveenvironments we were born into.

Feathers of Hope represents what was also in the Horizonsof Hope Report (1995),(2)youth rising like a phoenix from theflames. We are taking a stand against the inequality we facein our Canada, our “home on Native land.” We want theoppressive and ill-informed attitudes that people have of usdispelled. At the Feathers of Hope forum, many youth participantsspoke about feeling misunderstood and frustratedwith their living situations and said, “Come to the reserveand see what it’s really like. You try surviving here.”

Hearing these repeated public discussions about First Nationspeoples, “getting a free ride” or “free handouts” and“special race-based treatment,” promotes hostile attitudestowards us on the part of the Canadian public. The reality is,people don’t know how much young First Nations peoplestruggle every day. This “convenient blindness” in everydayCanadian society is disheartening and disempowering.

Young First Nations people understand that this is amisguided perspective subtlety reinforced by the mediaand other misinformed public sources of information. Wecome across these disturbing attitudes every time we try todo well for ourselves, whether it be though furthering oureducations, trying to get access to proper health care orcreating a political movement.

We are continually stonewalled by attitudes and beliefs thatsuggest we are asking for “special undeserved treatment.”Beliefs like this make it easy to slip into conversations thatlead to the use of words such as “lazy,” “irresponsible” and“drunken.” This oppressive and all too common attitudeprevents us from achieving our full rights and hinders theadvancement of young First Nations people. It sets us upagainst even more obstacles as the integrity of our aspirationsand actions is constantly put into question.

We know we live in Canada not through “race-based” law,but rather through nation to nation treaty agreements,agreements between equals. We hold on to these treatyagreements with pride because they are a record that ourrelationship with Canada is an agreement between equals.

The fact that we do not surrender these treaties and refuseto simply forget them because it is convenient shows weare still able to fight for the future while holding onto ourpast. We openly question what is being taught about us andour histories in mainstream educational settings. Theseattitudes we encounter everyday of our young lives demonstrateclearly how colonization is in full force and stillworking to this day.

We want to de-colonize our minds. That being said, ourfirst request is that instead of denying our true past, wechoose to acknowledge and to honour it, and we wantCanada to join us.

Footnotes1 John Leslie, The Historical Development of the Indian Act, secondedition (Ottawa: Department of Indian Affairs and NorthernDevelopment, Treaties and Historical Research Branch, 1978; pp. 114)

2 Nishnawbe-Aski Nation (1995). Horizons of Hope: An EmpoweringJourney. Final Report of the Youth Forum on Suicide.